Quietus

by Tristan Palmgren

  “You won’t be alone once you find your family. I don’t want to interfere.”

  “You don’t need to interfere.”

  The moon shone bright enough that Habidah didn’t need infrared to take stock of the fear in his eyes. “All right.” Only then did they let each other’s hands go.

  She sent the shuttle to find a secluded hideaway on the Mediterranean coast. With a breath like a whisper, it vanished into the night. Niccoluccio glanced back to make sure she was following, and gaped at the shuttle’s sudden absence. Habidah kept him moving forward.

  Rows of stakes and old, dead vines constrained their path. Branches scraped at their ankles. A pulse scan found the nearest road. They stepped onto it just ahead of a horse-drawn wagon. The driver – a farmer, judging by the dirt under his chin and the calluses on his hands – glared at them as he passed, but said nothing. Niccoluccio stared after him. It took Habidah a moment to remember that this farmer was the first person, other than herself and her team, that Niccoluccio had seen since the men of his monastery had died weeks ago.

  Habidah let him lead the way. The road was broad, wheel-rutted, and slick with frost. Florence was a cloudy nebula in infrared. The plague had already passed through. Even from this distance she could detect the empty houses.

  As they drew closer to the gates, he gradually seemed to forget she was there. His step became surer. Infrared showed his pulse slackening. It wasn’t just the comedown from the flight. However he protested that he couldn’t come here alone, he knew this place. He was probably more comfortable here than anywhere short of Sacro Cuore. Judging from what Habidah knew of Carthusian monastic life, maybe more.

  Habidah kept her head down as they entered the gates. The towers on both sides dwarfed them. Armored men stood astride the walls, but didn’t move or speak. Florence had started to come sullenly alive. The winding streets rattled with cart traffic, the morning’s grain. The sky had pinked enough to reveal the city, from the smaller houses nearby to the slender tower of the Castagna and the Cathedral of Santa Reparata.

  For the past week, Niccoluccio had looked as lost as a sheep in the clouds. For as readily as he recognized this place, that impression hadn’t faded. His step wandered. More than once, Habidah had to gently take him by the elbow and lead him out of the way of cart traffic.

  “It’s so noisy,” he said, lost in wonder.

  “Not as noisy as it used to be, I’ll wager.” When Niccoluccio turned to her, she explained, “The pestilence has already struck. The worst is over, at least the first wave, but it’s taken a lot of lives.”

  He nodded, solemn. “I may still die of the pest even after all this.”

  “You’re safe.”

  Niccoluccio glanced at her, nearly tripping over a wheel rut. “Beg your pardon?”

  “The pestilence doesn’t seem very interested in you.” There were some things she hadn’t told him, or her team members, and that he’d never need to find out.

  It had been easy enough to figure out how Niccoluccio survived. The tight, unsanitary quarters of monasteries made good homes for rats and their fleas. Mostly, he’d been lucky. But he’d mentioned spending most of his time away from the dormitory, and sleeping next to a fireplace. The smoke would have warded off plague-carrying fleas.

  Back here, he would be just as vulnerable to the plague as anybody else. Habidah wasn’t prepared to let her rescue go to waste. She may not have been able to cure the plague, but she wasn’t completely helpless against it. She’d fortified Niccoluccio’s immune system. Her bugs were swimming around his veins, teaching his white blood cells new tricks.

  He frowned, and pulled his hands into his sleeves for warmth. He glanced at every person they passed, searching for familiar faces. Habidah followed in silence, no longer trusting herself to speak.

  Unlike Genoa, the city maintained some semblance of civil order. There were no bodies in streets and alleys. Several streets were deserted, but that was all. The plague had made its mark, certainly, but it was written underneath Florence’s surface. The Unity would be so lucky to end up like this after the onierophage ended, if it ever did end.

  She would have to count on Niccoluccio to peel back Florence’s skin. Even coming this far with him was stretching things. As if stirred by that thought, her demiorganics let her know that she had an incoming call. Feliks. She swallowed her irritation.

  “Straying a little far into Florence, aren’t you?” Feliks asked.

  “I wish you wouldn’t watch so closely.”

  “I’m worried about you and I have every professional right to be.”

  “I’m accompanying him home. I don’t intend to stay longer than that.” She glanced skyward. The nearest observation satellite was high overhead. “Thank you for not piling on during the conference.”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing? Piling on now that we can talk alone?”

  Habidah massaged her forehead. “No, no – but if you didn’t want to make it seem like you were, you could have opened with another question.”

  “How is our guest coping with the plague city?”

  “It’s nowhere near as bad as Genoa. He’s doing better than I expected.”

  “You said you’re going to drop our guest off. Are you planning on visiting again?”

  The question caught her off guard. “If we get enough about Florence from him, I don’t need to visit again.” That would mean that she would never see him again after today. Her throat tightened looking at him.

  Niccoluccio was navigating on automatic now, taking turns without looking. Once, she caught him stepping over an upraised cobble without glancing at it. Every once in a while, he looked to the Cathedral of Santa Reparata as it rose over the rooftops.

  Feliks said, “Let’s make sure this stays your last visit, all right?”

  “I understand,” she sent back.

  “And you might want to send his reports to Kacienta.”

  “He’s already asked that I keep in contact with him.”

  “Are you going to keep in contact because you think it will be better for our project, or because you think it will be better for you?”

  She didn’t have an answer. No. Rather, the answer was all too obvious. Niccoluccio checked to make sure she was still following. She gave him a thin smile.

  Feliks said, “Don’t use him as a cushion to cope with your own problems. I don’t know much about him other than what I’ve seen through the cameras, but I can already tell you that he deserves better. These people have their own lives. Let him have his.”

  The streets had gotten wider, more evenly cobbled. Fewer infrared shadows shone through the walls. It wasn’t a symptom of the plague. Niccoluccio had led her into a wealthier, less crowded neighborhood. The wide doors and windows were spaced farther apart, and barred by high loggias. The Cathedral of Santa Reparata’s dawn shadow covered seemingly half of Florence.

  At the next intersection, Niccoluccio stopped and looked again to the cathedral. He lowered his hood. Habidah let him have his moment. It had been a long time since he’d seen any building like it. She closed her eyes and focused instead on calming her breathing.

  Niccoluccio said, “It seems so small, after everything you’ve shown me.”

  Habidah cracked an eye open. Maybe she’d misread his reason for stopping. “Our field base could fit inside those walls and still leave most of that space empty.”

  “But I didn’t… I didn’t mean physically.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  After a moment of searching for words, he said, “It’s difficult to articulate. I’m sorry. I can’t. You must know what I mean.”

  She glanced at the cathedral. It was the tallest building in the city, but only about ninety meters. It was hard to feel much when she looked at it. It was impressive only in the context of the society. On her first field assignment, when she’d been a junior anthropologist itching to start her work, she’d seen stone towers carved into mountains so tall that she�
�d needed a respirator to visit the top levels. She’d felt something like awe then, certainly. But she’d left without a glance back. The awe hadn’t been for the towers. It had been for the breadth and variety of the multiverse. That had been when she’d stopped entertaining ideas of settling back home.

  Now she’d brought something of that perspective to Niccoluccio. A pit opened in the center of her chest. She’d told him that she and her team had come from another part of his world, but that hadn’t kept her small enough.

  “Your home is nearby?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I could see the cathedral spires from my bedroom. Another half-mile, perhaps.”

  “We could have taken a more direct route.”

  “I had thought to visit the cathedral with you first, but I can see now that that was a mistake. It doesn’t mean as much to me as I remembered.”

  This was what Feliks had warned her about. Just by telling half the truth about herself, she’d taken something away from him. She stopped walking at the edge of a quieter intersection. “I can’t keep going with you.”

  “Because of the cathedral?”

  “No. I just can’t go any farther.”

  “Do you need rest?”

  “You’ve been looking about for familiar faces. Think about that. If someone you knew spotted you returning in the company of a strange woman, the gossip could damage your reputation forever.”

  “You said you would come with me.”

  “The rest of my team is already calling me away.”

  Niccoluccio glanced about. “From where?”

  She smiled, shook her head, and tapped the side of her head. “In here. Like you’ll be able to talk with me, whenever you want.”

  “I don’t know that I can go farther alone,” he said. He seemed only perplexed, but an infrared scan showed his quickened pulse. He was actually doing an admirable job of hiding his anxiety.

  “Like I said, you can talk to me whenever you want. Then neither of us will be alone. But my staying here is not going to be good for either of us.”

  Niccoluccio’s arms drooped at his sides. Habidah touched his hand, but couldn’t do anything more. She took a step back. “You’ll be able to handle this better without me than with me. I have faith that you can.” She was about to remind him that she would be watching, but, looking at him again, reconsidered. That just meant that he would be thinking about her again. He needed to focus on his own life rather than the shadows he’d glimpsed of hers.

  That would have to be for the best.

  She smiled one last time, more slightly than before, and turned. The sky was still gray enough that, if she hurried, the shuttle would be able to pick her up without arousing too much attention. She tried not to look behind her, but, when she did, Niccoluccio was still standing in the same place she’d left him.

  14

  Niccoluccio threaded through the streets, though he didn’t remember the trip. He wasn’t sure how he managed to stay upright. It felt like the strings holding him up had been cut.

  The past few days had been a dream, a hint of Paradise. Now he’d been cast back to Earth.

  It had to happen at some point. Habidah hadn’t allowed him any illusions about staying in her home. All he’d wanted was to put off leaving as long as he could. It smelled so sweet back there. Florence was a nightmare by contrast. He picked his way over the sewage-filled runnels, hand held over his nose.

  He was so intent on remembering the smell of Habidah’s home that he hardly noticed he was back in his old street. The sense of familiarity made him halt. Two houses had been taken down and replaced. Another was missing its windows. The old servants’ chapel had lost all of its paint.

  He still hadn’t seen anyone he knew. He strode to his father’s home without looking at it. He took a breath, braced himself, and faced it.

  There was no one inside. He knew that at once. No smoke came out of the chimneys. At this time of year, there should be at least one fire. Puddles of frost-salted mud sat undisturbed in front of the door. When Niccoluccio had been young, if their front walk had looked so filthy, his father would have had him out cleaning it before dawn.

  He stared for a long time until he found the courage to approach. The door was locked. No one answered his knock. His father was a late sleeper, but his siblings and their children and servants should have been up.

  For a long time, he stood in front of the door, hoping that someone would come up and tell him what to do next. He nearly started speaking to Habidah as she’d taught him. The way she’d looked at him before she left made him hold back, though.

  The last he’d heard (and his news was not recent), two of his four brothers had homes in the city. He had no idea where. His brother Dioneo had finished his legal training and begun to work for one of the city’s priors. The priorate met in the Palazzo della Signoria. He had no choice but to start walking.

  The streets were far filthier than he remembered. Dark masses had congealed under the ice. A pair of pigs ruffled in the refuse. The roads hadn’t been cleaned by rain or city sweepers in a long time. After the faultlessly immaculate rooms of Habidah’s home, he felt he needed a bath just walking here. The buildings on either side seemed too close together, but he was sure that was a trick of his memories of rural Sacro Cuore. Florence had, in his absence, turned from a city of streets into a city of alleys.

  He passed his first victims of the pest. Two men bore a cart covered with pale cloth. Niccoluccio may not have been able to see underneath, but the cloth couldn’t hide the stink. Niccoluccio had smelled bodies, fresh and old, too many times to forget it.

  But if only Brother Rinieri could see how many people still lived here.

  The filth diminished as he approached the figurative center of the city. The manors stood pridefully tall, overlooking the streets like little castles. Some bore faux-crenelated roofs. In the days before Niccoluccio had left, the vanity of it all had made him say a prayer for the people inside. After Habidah, it only seemed insignificant.

  He didn’t see the Palazzo della Signoria until he stepped out into it. The street emptied out into a wide, clean cobbled space, free of the worst city smells. Even at this early hour, the plaza bustled. Foodsellers set up their stalls along the brick walls, but the plaza itself hosted nothing but people and their conversations: civil servants hustling to work, merchants in open-air meetings, clergymen giving sermons to crowds clustering to hear. Even in the aftermath of the plague, it was still as Niccoluccio remembered.

  He stood at the fringes for nearly a minute before he remembered he’d come with a goal. As impressive as the plaza was, the priors only met here. They worked elsewhere. He spun in a circle and racked his memories before he alighted on the Palazzo Vecchio.

  The Palazzo Vecchio was a broad, squat-looking rectangle with an ugly, jutting, off-center finger of a tower. It cast a deep shadow over half of the plaza. Like the manors, it had a crenelated roof, but the battlements were more than decorative. As one of the centers of Florence’s government, it had good reason to fortify itself against riots.

  It had been built over the home of a rebel family to prevent their supporters from ever rebuilding there. The off-center tower had been a part of that home. Florentines took pride in the building, but Niccoluccio found it jarring. Time hadn’t improved its appeal. If anything, its walls were dirtier than he remembered.

  The grand, golden foyer felt like a cathedral. Niccoluccio would have stopped in his tracks if he hadn’t just come from a more incredible place. Neither of the men standing guard inside looked at him, but the pock-faced secretary behind the lone desk did. Niccoluccio approached him. Hesitantly, he gave his brother’s name and then his own.

  The secretary raised an eyebrow, but dispatched a page upstairs. Niccoluccio stood by the wall, closed his eyes, and tried to center himself. He didn’t have long to do that before the boy returned.

  The boy led Niccoluccio up a flight of stairs and through a hallway far wider than it needed to be.
Other people were about – Niccoluccio heard an occasional cough or wheeze – but they were hidden behind doors and few in number. The priors and their aides generally didn’t do any work this early. Like most of the city’s wealthy, they slept through the mornings.

  Niccoluccio’s guide left him in front of a carved wooden door large enough for three men. The boy bowed before he left. Niccoluccio watched him leave. He hadn’t thought he’d deserved a bow. He couldn’t remember anyone in this city bowing to him before. He was so perplexed that he neglected to knock before entering.

  On the other side, there was a door, a desk, and a man.

  The man was not the younger brother he remembered – almost a stranger. Dioneo stood astride a finely carved oak desk piled with ledgers. His hair was thinning and exposed a patch of scalp. Some of it had started to lighten, a prelude to graying. His brow had grown a deep crease. He held a pair of hefty, white-framed spectacles.

  But his eyes brought back memories sweet as strawberries. When they were young, he’d spent hours each day teaching Dioneo to read and do sums. Niccoluccio had once been able to lift his brother. Now Dioneo looked to be one-and-a-half times his weight. It was as if Niccoluccio’s brother had aged two years for every one Niccoluccio had been away.

  Dioneo stood in a wordless stupor. He let his spectacles clatter to the desk. He brought Niccoluccio into a wrenching embrace before Niccoluccio realized what was happening. “You’re still alive?”

  When Niccoluccio got his breath back, he answered, “That does seem to be the most appropriate greeting for the times.”

  Dioneo laughed a disconcertingly deep laugh. “Well met! So long as there are still two Caracciolas in the world, we can remember how to laugh.” The edges of his eyes were wet, but he was not crying. He clapped an arm over Niccoluccio’s shoulder and led him to the seat before his desk.

  Niccoluccio sat with hands folded in his lap. His pulse threaded in his ears as he explained what had happened – up until the point at which he met Habidah. Dioneo said, “I heard from a merchant that the survivors of your monastery’s lay community fled. They’d assumed you had all fallen to the pestilence. Was I told a tale? Does Sacro Cuore survive?”